Production of the building blocks of life
Advanced observational tools such as ALMA allow the detection of complex organic molecules – the building blocks of life. However, how and where they are formed is still unknown.
What is the meter size barrier?
Planets seem to occur all over the place in the universe. However, it is still unknown how they form. The growth of objects larger than meter size is difficult because objects of this size quickly fall into the central star. This Astrobite gives a small overview of the meter-size barrier as found by Stuart J. Weidenschilling in 1977.
Falling stones paint it black
Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System, but some of its properties are a big challenge to explain. Today’s Astrobite presents a solution to one of these issues: The darkening of Mercury is induced by a high abundance of carbon delivered by meteorites.
A new tool for hunting exoplanetary rings
Planetary rings such as those around Saturn are fascinating features. Recent observations also reveal evidence for rings around exoplanets, but it’s a difficult task to distinguish these planets from ringless planets. This Astrobite presents a technique, which simplifies the search for candidates. Even better, the developed code is publicly available and allows you going out to look for candidates for exoplanetary rings.
Using observations from home to improve the transit method
Most exoplanets are and have been detected by the transit method. Maybe, we can improve the method even further by drawing conclusions from the recent Venus transits in 2004 and 2012.